Alright, the one ring was a lot shinier but I picked up the keys at lunchtime today and we went straight up to Cairnorchies to gloat and explore thoroughly.

The first thing we did was turn the water on – everything’s been turned off and drained down, so I hauled the panels off the bath and found the stopcock exactly where I was told it would be, then turned it on. Instantly, there was an enormous gushing sound as all the pipes attempted to refill at once.

The taps all worked fine, so we turned them off. The cistern refilled and the loo flushes perfectly, refills and then stops properly. The hot water tank refilled and the radiators all gurgled madly, then that stopped and the only thing still making a noise was the cold water tank in the loft…. then that stopped too.

No gurgling. No gushing. No drips or leaks anywhere I could see, having searched carefully all around several times.

Excellent!

After that we unloaded the car, which I’d stuffed with a random assortment of whatever I could lay hands on as well as the chimney brush, rods and other priority items, and then we put the kettle on and set off with mugs of tea and sandwiches to just wander and explore.

It took a while finding which key fitted which padlock, but eventually we got everywhere.

The bathroom is poky; the bath is barely big enough to sit in and will get replaced with a shower tray in due course, and there’s a strange assortment of rubbish I raked out from under the bath while looking for the stopcock. The toilet seat has lost one of its fixings at the back but that’s okay, I have a nice pine one from B&Q instead which just needs fitting. The walls are tiled up to halfway most of the way round (except the bath – that’s tiled full height) then there’s blue-and-white fake-tile wallpaper above that which needs stripping off! I’ll emulsion the walls – much easier to maintain in a damp steamy atmosphere!

The kitchen is also small – there’s no cooker, so I’ll take a camping stove and a canister of gas up tomorrow. There’s also a dishwasher, which can just go. I’ve never liked the things and on private drainage I think they’re a hazard! One wrong tablet and the septic tank will cock up its biological toes and need faffing with to get it right again. The space could be much better used throughout the kitchen and at some point I’ll rip it all out and rebuild it from scratch – including a cooker!

This little room has a drain hole through the wall to the outside, a couple of power points, a row of coathooks and a pair of shelves. There’s no radiator in this one, so it’ll probably become a pantry – it faces north, into the bargain, so despite the window it won’t get too hot. At some point I’ll put in a small freezer, block off the rat entry through the wall and then shelve it with good deep shelves so I can store things effectively.

Not a lot to say about the first bedroom – it’s a smallish double that has a nice view over the garden and fields to the east, and I need to wash the windows to get the limewash off them. The carpet is what I think of as dingy coloured – I’ll probably strip it out and replace with laminate at some point.

The lounge is the biggest room in the house and since I’m not a great one for watching TV (haven’t owned one in over a decade!) I’ll probably make it my main workroom for crafting drums, doing workshops and so forth. It has the woodburner that powers the central heating in it, as well as the hot water tank, so it should be the cosiest room too.

This is the view from the front bedroom to the garden door – it’s not a big house! Not a lot to say about this corridor, really, except it’ll look much better with new lino down.

Not a lot to say about the front bedroom, either! It’s another small double with a fireplace that’s missing its grate and has its chimney stuffed full of old newspapers. I may well eventually rip it out and put in a small woodburner I have hanging about at a loose end, or possibly get it a new grate. The walls need a good coat of paint, too.

There’s a small back bedroom which is a single and looks over the garden, but probably the less said about it the better. It’s a just-about-single room by the time you’ve stuffed in a dresser or wardrobe. I’ll probably use it as an office. Needs a good wash-down and repainting…. the ceiling is a hideous shade of purple!

Outside is where it’s really important – for the horses and, in due course, other critters.

This is the view from the house door across the yard to the stable shed. I don’t think I’m going to keep the stables in it – they’re only 9 foot stables, which is really small even for ponies – and mine are all going to be between 15 and 18 hands or so when they’re done growing! I’d like to reinstate the big sliding door that used to be on the right, the roof at that end needs a bit of TLC and the window on the left end needs replacing. Other that that it’ll make a good size shed for something – maybe the bunnies, or goats, who knows? I forgot to take pix inside it – maybe I’ll remember tomorrow!

 

Here’s the view looking north towards the other range of sheds. On the right is a block-built shed with two windows that need replacing, a door that needs replacing and another that’s on upside down! That’s a little disconcerting when you try to unlock it and turn the doorhandle, I have to admit. It’s a decent size inside, though.

This is the view inside it – it’s about the size of a double garage with two sets of windows. Once it’s cleaned up and the doors and windows sorted, it’ll look 100% better.

To the left from the workshop shed is a sliding door that gives into the first of the big ex-dairy sheds. This one is about 30 feet long by around 15 wide. There’s a few leaks in the roof and I wouldn’t like to see George scratching on the roof supports, but it’s a fine big space for storing things! At the far end is the door to the smaller dairy shed – it’s a rolling door and it works.

This is the view looking the other way along that shed – the big roller door on the right gives a space big enough to drive a car in easily, so it’ll be the main entry way for the horses. You can clearly see the roof issue here – they’ve used lengths of timber to support the roof instead of splashing out on the steel beams the space really needs, so there’s sag in the middle where the beams overlap. There’s a good steel beam at the end nearer the camera here, though, which is straight as a die and looks very sturdy.

From that shed you step through the sliding door into the second dairy shed, which is a good big size. I need to fill in the old drain in the floor and rip out all the drinkers, I think, and the roof – which is entirely transparent sheets so it’s a very bright space! – needs some TLC… but plastic sheets are easy to replace and it’ll make another grand space after that.

As you can see, it grows moss very well where the roof sheets have been letting water through!

This is the view back into the dairy from the next shed along. The doorway in the middle of the photo is blocked up – the smallholding was originally bigger and this led into one of the huge sheds that now belong to the farmer up the road. On the right is the sliding door through to the first dairy shed.

This vast shed is the one I think I’ll put the horses in to start with. It’s forty foot long and just over 17 foot wide, which gives plenty of space for four horses to mooch about together, even when one’s a Suffolk Punch! I’ll put down a deep bed of straw in part of it, hang hayracks around the walls and put in some  big water tubs – they’ll be fine in there!

Here’s the view back towards the other end of the shed. The floor is reasonably smooth, sloping towards the back right corner (there’s a boarded-up door there that leads into the stable shed) and I really wouldn’t want to have the horses tripping over the old dairy drains in the night! I’ll put slip rails up to keep them in the shed at night, to begin with – that way I’ll know they’re definitely safe in there when I’m asleep in the house!

Tomorrow I’ll take up a stiff brush and a shovel and start clearing the floors and ledges thoroughly. We’re going to need a skip, I think, to get it all cleared! I also want to walk the field boundaries and see what needs doing there by way of running electric fence and how I’m going to get the horses in and out best. There’s three gates and it might be a case of choosing the least-worst option to begin with!

We’ve also measured the drive for gates; it’s 4 feet from the wall to the field side of the tarmac, then 17 to the shed-side of the tarmac. I think we’ll need double gates that hook together in the middle, with holes drilled into the tarmac for the down bolts that secure the gates there. That’s quite a high priority, so I’ll start running internet searches to decide where to get the gates later tonight.

These two outbuildings are on the north of the house. The one on the right seems to have been used as a potting shed, but I think it’s going to be our goose-house to start with, since it has a door we can bolt at night to keep foxes at bay. The one on the left doesn’t have a door; at some point it’s been a dog run but before that I think a boiler shed, since it has a chimney in the back left corner – alas, smashed at the bottom. It might be worth lining it and putting in a small stove, perhaps, but I’ll wait and see what it turns into.

On the south side of the house is this little greenhouse. It’s missing a few panes and needs weeding, but at least I’ll have a good place to start seedlings off in the veg garden.

This is quite a high priority, too! This is the floor of the porch that used to be on this side of the house – the yard side, so the main door – and it’s treacherously slippy when it’s wet! We picked our way very cautiously across the far side of it to get in today, but for an instant fix I’m taking a bag of shavings up tomorrow and putting a dry walkway across it. In the longer run I’ll have to pull it up – at some point I’ll reinstate the porch, since porches are so useful, but for now I’ll be content with safe!

The key has been handed to the vendor’s solicitor and will be delivered to mine tomorrow, together with the signed deeds. My solicitor will let me know the moment he has the key, and then I rush over to Peterhead and take possession.

It’s going to be a morning of waiting!

The vendor also messaged me this afternoon to tell me where the rest of the keys are, where the water stop cock is and to wish us a long and happy life in Cairnorchies, which is very kind of her.

Only 3 more sleeps and then I’ll be camped on my solicitor’s doorstep to get the keys first thing Thursday.

I’m itching to get stuck in to all the work that’ll need doing before the horses can get onto the land, but there’s nothing much I can do about it yet, which is frustrating! I’m passing the time trying to decide what I need to take up there first.

Chimney brush, certainly, matches and a selection of firewood. The brush and rods are in the post from Screwfix, due to arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.

A vacuum cleaner, for tidying up after sweeping the chimneys! We have lots, some of which are elderly and tatty but still perfectly good for removing soot. I must find an old sheet and some tape, too, for containing soot falls so we don’t end up with soot over everything.

Kettle, teabags, milk, mugs. I have a set of cutlery hanging around spare that can go up.

New toilet seat – the one there is cracked and needs replacing.

Cleaning materials.

Tape measure.

The metal fittings for the slip rails I plan on using to separate the various sections of shed – at the moment it’s all a bit open plan! I’ll also need my drill and drill bits for fitting the things to the shed walls.

I’m still waiting to get the water quality report back – but the worst case scenario is that we have to take a water filter up there and/or boil water before imbibing and, as  a life-long tea-addict with a camping background, I have some very good water filters around and will be brewing up rather than drinking plain water anyway.

After that it might be a case of whatever will fit in the car and anything I’ve overlooked goes over in the next load, because I’m going to be up there all day every day until we’ve got it ready for the critters!

Only another 5 days to go!

The funds for the purchase are now in my solicitor’s hands, so that’s safely done.

Electricity, phone and internet have been organised, bedding, hay and feed for the animals is in hand, I’ve located a source of good-quality kiln-dried hardwood logs.

With the snow, I can’t get my car hooked up to the horse trailer at the moment, so I’ve chocked up the back of the trailer on wood blocks for now, which means it won’t see-saw if a horse stands on the ramp – so tomorrow morning Poppy and Dancer will be resuming their trailer training sessions twice a day.

I still need to get the chimneys swept and, as I haven’t heard a squeak back from either of the sweeps I contacted, I’ll go to Screwfix this next week and buy a set of brushes to do the job myself. It’s not that complex a job, just messy and sometimes a bit strenuous – but it would be nice if people had the courtesy to at least acknowledge your query!

All is progressing fairly steadily with the purchase – except that my solicitor emailed me on Monday to say that some checking of the Property Enquiry Certificate had turned up the fact that the property is in fact not on mains water, it’s on private supply. Was this a problem for me?

Absolutely not!

Firstly, I dislike mains water on principle. If my water needs anything doing to keep it safe and healthy, I’d rather do it myself and know what’s gone into it, rather than relying on some bored bloke in a treatment works doing things accurately and not leaving the wrong switch on or accidentally spilling tons of chemicals into it. The mains water at my current home goes through a very good filter (a British Berkefeld with Super Sterasyl filter candles) precisely because it’s mains water and I want all those chemicals out again and to be sure any bugs have indeed been removed.

Secondly, it cuts the water charge off my Council Tax bill entirely – I now have private supply and private drainage and there’s nothing at all for the water board to charge me for!

The seller is getting the supply tested to make sure it meets the regulation standards and then we’ll see – but I’ve no objection to private water and we can negotiate some kind of financial meeting-point on the cost of any required treatment options, I’m sure.

Date of Entry has now been agreed – 7th February 2019.

I’ve emailed the chimney sweep and left a voicemail for the electrician, so we can hopefully get the house warmed and the electric fence plugged in as soon as possible after that date.

I’ve also been offered a pair of geese by a friend whose husband has put his foot down  – he has nothing against the geese except they make a mess on his patio and in his carport! That’s fine – I’ll just confine them on grass away from the house, with electric netting. They’re only a couple of years old, the gander is a good watchdog but not overly offensive towards humans and the goose laid well last year before going broody, so there might be a fat young goose on the table next Christmas!

It’s feeling close and getting exciting now!

I may be counting my chickens before they’ve hatched, but this blog is a diary for a smalholding called Cairnorchies, in Aberdeenshire. I’m still in the process of buying the place, haven’t even signed the paperwork let alone handed over the money or moved a single critter onto the land yet!

Still, I’ve made the offer and the vendors have accepted it, so under Scottish law it’s as good as mine unless I decide to walk away…. so I’m counting my eggs as at least fertile, even if not yet hatched!

Eventually Cairnorchies will be my home, and home to my two whippets, four horses, fluctuating numbers of rex rabbits (and Blue…) and quail, plus perhaps some full-size chickens and a small flock of small sheep (yes, I know – but I’m thinking maybe half a dozen Castlemilk Moorits or the like, so ‘small’ in both individual and group size!). There might be some bees and possibly a guard llama, you never know.

At the moment there’s some sheds in need of new roofs, a house in dire need of warmth and TLC, a small patch of scrub wood in need of work, a paddock that needs the ruins of a collapsed Nissan hut removing, gardens that need a gardener and a field badly in need of being grazed!

On the plus side, there’s a mass of off-road riding available just a few hundred yards in both directions, a decent electric-ready boundary fence, friendly neighbours, and Potential in heaps.